Abstract
Higher plants are ubiquitously colonized with fungal endophytes that often lack readily detectable structures. Current study examines the distribution of endophytic fungal communities within Karanja plants and diversity of novel fungal endophyte Alternaria solani isolates collected from different locations of Sanganer region of Rajasthan. Results confirmed that A. solani is a major fungal endophyte consortium associated with Karanja plants. PCR Amplified fragments using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primers were subjected to unweighted pair group method analysis (UPGMA), which clearly distinguished twelve ecologically diverse A. solani isolates. A total of 58 RAPD loci were amplified, out of which 35 (60.34%) were polymorphic and 23 were monomorphic (39.66%) in nature. These polymorphic loci were identified with an average of 2.92 bands per primer. The efficacy of RAPD markers proved as an efficient marker system with respect to detection of polymorphism and number of loci scored and can be used for the identification of a particular isolates, thereby defining core collections and strengthening their exploitation in acquiring novel products produced by them.